Self-reflection, not a debate.

My perspective: I believe Christ came to save everyone from the fear of death. I let His life and heart interpret Scripture and avoid relying on my own fallible interpretation of His words. The Holy Spirit gives understanding of God's heart, judgment, and the whole of Scripture.

If You Believe God Is Evil, Do You Truly Know Him?

“That sounds like your version of God. Show me you truly know Him by how deeply you love everyone, even those who disagree with you, despise you, and spit on you.”

If your view of God doesn't teach you to love as Jesus did, do you really understand His heart, or only your idea of Him?

If you're condemning yourself or others, are you seeing yourself and others through Jesus' eyes, or judging by your own understanding?

Jesus showed us a Love rich in mercy, forgiveness, humility, and patience. His Love seeks to restore what is ruined, heal what is broken, and welcome those who are rejected.

Can you carry your cross without condemnation in your heart? Can you love even when others reject you, mistreat you, or turn their backs on you? Can you go the extra mile when you're only forced to go one?

Show me by how you live, not just by what you preach.

Is your heart looking to condemn someone or to love someone despite everything?

John 3:17

John 3:19

John 14:9

Matthew 9:13

Matthew 11:29

Romans 12:21

2 Corinthians 3:6

Hebrews 2:14–15

1 John 4:7–8

1 Corinthians 13:4–8

Long read, but I wanted to explain the whole picture clearly.

Contents

1. Christ Is the Only Lens
2. Our Understanding Is Fallible
3. Words Can Be Clear While Intention Is Missed
4. Why Didn't God Just Make It Explicit?
5. Christ Reveals the Heart of God
6. Victorious Love at the Cross
7. The Whole Picture of Christ's Victory
8. Judgment and Fire Through Christ
9. What These Words Mean Through Christ
10. The Bigger Conclusion
11. Where My Search Ended

When I connected all the pieces together, this is where it led me.

It put two things to rest for me:

Eternal Conscious Torment and the idea that the Old Testament reveals a God whose heart is evil or unlike Christ.

Both began to resolve through the same answer:

Christ reveals the heart of God.

I no longer begin with a difficult verse and let that verse define God.

I begin with Christ.

Christ is the whole Truth, not a single verse in Scripture.

If it doesn't look like Jesus, it's not the Truth.

Christ Is the Only Lens

My understanding changed in four stages.

I read Scripture flatly.

Then I tried to interpret it myself.

Then I interpreted it through Christ.

Finally, I stopped putting myself in the center and let Christ interpret it.

That last step changed everything.

Christ is the ONLY lens, above all and through all.

Not tradition.

Not fear.

Not universalism.

Not me.

Christ is the living Word. Scripture gives me the pieces and points me to Him, but Christ is the One who reveals the heart and intention of God.

If inspired Scripture comes from God, why would I want my own understanding to be the final interpreter instead of His?

If someone wrote me a letter and was standing right beside me explaining what they meant, why would I insist that my interpretation of their words mattered more than theirs?

That is how I see Scripture.

If I make my own understanding the final interpreter, I am only going to end up with the answer my own interpretation gives me.

That is why I let Christ interpret Scripture for me.

I start with Christ, with His life, His heart, and the intentions He reveals through His words and actions.

Then I move from the whole of Scripture through Him, to the book, the chapter, the passage, and finally the verse.

Christ first. The whole picture first. The verse last.

A piece can look confusing by itself, but when you add the other pieces and let Christ hold the whole picture together, the meaning becomes clearer.

I ask:

What does the text actually say?

What am I assuming that the text itself does not actually say?

Then I connect the pieces Scripture actually gives me.

Our Understanding Is Fallible

Something I eventually realized is this:

Our understanding is fallible and limited. Christ is not.

Paul says:

“For we know in part.”
1 Corinthians 13:9

So when I only have part of the picture, I treat it like part of the picture.

I do not force one verse to become the whole.

I do not fill missing information with assumptions.

A possibility is not a fact.

An inference is not the same thing as an explicit statement.

Missing information is not permission to invent information.

If I do not know something, I can leave it unknown.

I connect what is there. I do not create what is missing.

I can leave a difficult passage uncertain without leaving God's character uncertain.

Christ is not uncertain.

Words Can Be Clear While Intention Is Missed

Someone can hear every word I say correctly and still misunderstand me.

The words can be clear.

The intention can still be missed.

The same thing can happen with Scripture.

A command can be heard while its purpose is misunderstood.

A warning can be heard while its heart is missed.

A judgment can be described while its intention is assumed.

So the question is not only:

What words are written?

It is also:

What is the intention behind them?

Christ reveals what lies beneath the words.

The intention of the heart speaks louder than the words themselves.

Why Didn't God Just Make It Explicit?

Then I look at Jesus.

The Truth was standing in front of people.

They heard Him.

They saw Him.

They watched how He treated people.

And they still misunderstood Him.

I know I did too.

That is why Jesus says:

“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Matthew 13:9

He was not talking about physical hearing.

The deeper issue was whether the heart could receive and understand what was being revealed.

A few verses later, Jesus says:

“You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.”
Matthew 13:14

He connects that lack of understanding with the heart.

That speaks deeply to me.

The words can already be there.

The Truth can already be standing in front of us.

And we can still miss it.

The heart hasn't seen it yet.

Explicit words alone do not guarantee understanding.

Christ Reveals the Heart of God

Jesus says:

“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
John 14:9

To me this means:

“Whoever has seen My heart has seen His heart.”

Christ desires mercy.

Christ loves enemies.

Christ seeks the lost.

Christ forgives.

Christ restores.

Christ continues loving through rejection.

So when I read about judgment, wrath, fire, justice, vengeance, punishment, or difficult Old Testament commands, I do not leave Christ behind.

Christ reveals the deeper meaning.

The historical details may remain incomplete, but God's heart is not unclear. Christ has revealed it.

So if a verse makes God look evil, I question my understanding of the verse before I question Christ.

If it doesn't look like Jesus, it's not the Truth.

Victorious Love at the Cross

Most see the cross as Christ suffering for our sin.

I see victorious Love overcoming sin.

Instead of mainly feeling guilty or miserable for what He went through, I feel admiration and Love for His devotion to me.

Love inspires love.

Christ doesn't need my tears. He wants my trust.

He was betrayed, rejected, abandoned, mocked, beaten, and crucified.

And He never stopped being Love.

Then He rose.

Rejection did not defeat Him.

Sin did not defeat Him.

Death did not defeat Him.

Jesus says:

“Take heart; I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33

Love overcame the world.

So I keep coming back to this:

If death could not defeat Love, why would our resistance?

The Whole Picture of Christ's Victory

Jesus says He will draw all people to Himself.

John 12:32

He says He came to save the world.

John 12:47

Paul says:

“As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”
1 Corinthians 15:22

He continues until every enemy is subjected, death is destroyed, and God becomes all in all.

Romans moves from condemnation to justification and from death to life.

Ephesians says all things are gathered in Christ.

Colossians says all things are reconciled through Christ.

Philippians says every knee bows and every tongue confesses Christ.

Revelation says Death and Hades give up their dead.

Then death itself is destroyed.

These no longer look like separate pieces to me.

They belong to one picture.

Judgment and Fire Through Christ

Jesus says:

“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world.”
John 3:19

Light reveals what darkness hides.

Judgment reveals.

Revelation describes Christ with eyes like fire and says He searches the mind and heart.

Malachi describes God as a refiner's fire.

Paul says fire reveals and tests what is there.

Christ's fire searches the heart, reveals what is contrary to Love, and purifies it.

A furnace does not exist to destroy the gold.

It removes what does not belong in it.

What These Words Mean Through Christ

Justice restores.

Wrath destroys sin.

Judgment reveals.

Fire purifies.

Vengeance repays with Love.

Repentance transforms.

Faith awakens.

Salvation reconciles.

Christ is Love revealed.

God is Love.

The Bigger Conclusion

My conclusion did not come from one verse supporting universalism.

It came from seeing Christ's heart, His intention, His purpose, His whole life, the cross, the resurrection, judgment, His victory over death, and the whole of Scripture together.

The pieces together began pointing in the same direction.

Christ reveals the Father.

Christ desires mercy.

Christ loves enemies.

Christ seeks the lost.

The cross reveals victorious Love overcoming sin.

The resurrection shows death cannot defeat Love.

Judgment reveals.

Fire purifies.

Wrath destroys sin.

Justice restores.

Repentance transforms.

Faith awakens.

Salvation reconciles.

All are made alive in Christ.

All things are gathered in Christ.

All things are reconciled through Christ.

Every knee bows.

Every tongue confesses Christ.

Death and Hades give up their dead.

Every enemy is subjected.

Death is destroyed.

God becomes all in all.

That is where all of this led me.

Universal Salvation within the Restoration of All Things in Christ.

When the whole picture is not there, I leave what is unknown as unknown.

But when the pieces come together in Christ, I let the whole picture speak for itself.

Where My Search Ended

Reaching this conclusion showed me the depth of Truth, but it did not make me feel like I fully know Christ.

It made me want to know Him more.

Paul still wanted:

“I want to know Christ.”
Philippians 3:10

I understand that more now.

And the only way to really know Him is to walk as He walked.

To experience Love the way He did.

I want to know His heart.

I want to know the depth of His Love.

I want to live in that Love.

Because when Christ's Love moves through us:

The Kingdom moves through us.

What does the Kingdom of Heaven look like?

It looks like Christ.

And I realized something else.

The battle was never about us winning.

It was about trusting that God will win.

Rejection does not get the final word.

Punishment does not get the final word.

Death does not get the final word.

Christ does.

Christ is Love revealed.

Love endured rejection.

Love endured the cross.

Love overcame sin.

Love overcame death.

Love reconciles.

Love restores.

Love never fails.

So after everything I wrestled with, everything I questioned, and everything Christ brought together, the final answer was never merely a doctrine.

The final answer was Christ.

It was always Love.

I think we sometimes make God’s love conditional without realizing it.

If God’s saving love can only act after you first give Him permission, then it ultimately depends on you. But love doesn’t need your permission to love you.

Jesus didn’t ask our permission before going to the cross. Love moved first. Grace comes first. It is unmerited and “not from yourselves.”

Free will doesn’t mean nobody can intervene in another person’s will. Our wills interact all the time. We persuade, influence, warn, rescue, restrain, and stop people from hurting themselves without automatically removing their ability to choose.

God’s will interacting with ours doesn’t automatically destroy our freedom. Free will does not by itself prevent God from saving.

The cross shows what Love does when we resist it. Jesus was rejected, betrayed, abandoned, mocked, hated, and killed, yet He answered with forgiveness, grace, resurrection, and life.

If even death couldn’t defeat Love, I don’t believe our resistance can either.

God is a lot stronger than some of us were led to believe.
He is stronger than resistance, rejection, unbelief, sin, hatred, betrayal, abandonment, suffering, and death.

That's what real love looks like.
It looks like Jesus on the cross.

He was rejected, betrayed, abandoned, mocked, hated, and put to death.
And still, Love remained.

While we were still sinners, He loved us. Even while they crucified Him, He said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Humanity gave Him rejection, sin, violence, and death.
He answered with forgiveness, grace, resurrection, and life.

The cross shows me that our rejection does not make Christ stop loving us.

Paul says that neither death nor life, nor anything else in creation, can separate us from the love of God in Christ.
The Psalmist says that even if he makes his bed in Sheol, God is there.

So where can we go where Love cannot reach us?

We can resist Love.
We can reject Love.
We can try to run from Love.

But even death has already been defeated.

Love overcame all of it.

If even death couldn't defeat Love, I don't believe our resistance can either.